As of the conclusion of Arrow earlier this year, Grant Gustin is now the longest-serving leading man of the Arrowverse, having debuted as Barry Allen on the aforementioned show in 2013 before The Flash kicked off the following year. He’s been living the superhero life for a long time, then, which is maybe why the star has got an itch to go over to the dark side.
In a chat with Michael Rosenbaum on his Inside of You podcast, Gustin spoke about how he’d like to play a villain at some point in order to “shake things up” after so long of portraying the Scarlet Speedster – not that he’s getting bored of being the savior of Central City, mind you.
“At this point, I’d say it’d be fun to play a villain, just because I’ve done so much Barry Allen over the years. I also loved getting the opportunity to play this character that innately has this suaveness, but is just so good and so well-intentioned. He has his downfalls and faults at times, but he really puts other people before himself. And I’ve learned a lot from Barry over the years. I love playing Barry. I don’t know. I definitely want to shake things up outside of Flash and play other kinds of things. But I also like playing a hero.”
Upon reading this quote all Flash fans probably had the same thought: yes, Gustin appears to be forgetting here that his career as Barry has already allowed him to play the villain. Season 3’s big bad Savitar was ultimately revealed to be an evil doppelgänger of the Flash. More recently, season 6A saw Barry briefly taken over by Bloodwork, giving him another chance to chew the scenery.
Still, you can understand Gustin’s desire to play someone completely different from Barry in a totally different type of project. His longtime co-star Stephen Amell has made similar comments in the past, suggesting he’d like to play a bad guy after saying goodbye to the Emerald Archer after eight years. Amell’s said, for instance, he wouldn’t mind swapping Oliver Queen for Superman’s nemesis General Zod.
The Flash season 6 continues tonight on The CW.
